In the field of ready-to-eat (RTE) cereals, visual attraction is an important factor. It is particularly so in the field of children's food such as breakfast cereal and snacks. Consequently, the cereal industry has been making a great effort to enhance the visual attraction of children's breakfast cereals. Thus, there are many children's breakfast cereals which contain various colored cereals, and cereals that contain some colored pieces, and some cereals containing various amounts of colored confections such as dried marshmallows in various shapes, etc.
One approach to engage the interest of children, as well as other people, in eating RTE cereal would be an RTE cereal that changes color on contact with an aqueous edible medium such as cold milk, hot water, etc. To make the change more interesting, the color change should be rapid and substantial, not merely a diminishing of the original color intensity of the RTE cereal. Thus, there is a need for a cereal that quickly changes from a first color to a second, different color after contact with milk.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a color-changing cereal which changes from one color to another color on contact with an aqueous edible medium where neither the base cereal nor the outer coating colors are white.
There is also a need for a method for making color-changing cereals that is efficient and cost effective.